About
nsawicki

The Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Annals of Health Law invite original research paper submissions for presentation at our Twelfth Annual Health Law Symposium: Serving the Needs of Medicaid Populations. The Symposium will take place at Loyola University Chicago School of Law on Friday, November 16, 2018.

The Symposium will explore whether the current Medicaid system is adequately serving the needs of its target population, and how social determinants of health affect access to care in the context of Medicaid. The Symposium is intended to touch upon a wide variety of areas responsive to this overall theme. Accordingly, we invite submissions addressing any and all aspects of Medicaid and/or its impact upon accessible, quality patient care. Possible approaches to this Call for Proposals include, but are not limited to:

Medicaid’s impact on the financial viability of hospital systems and physician practices and the effect this has on access to health care. Topics may explore the financial burdens and/or benefits faced by health systems after Medicaid expansion, economic viability of health systems in states that did not expand Medicaid, and corporate restructuring in the wake of Medicaid reform.

The current status of Medicaid in relation to access to health care. Topics may include the health access trends within states that expanded or shrunk Medicaid, state use of Medicaid waivers, Medicaid work requirements, and shifts in DHHS practices and policies.

Populations underserved by Medicaid. Topics may explore immigrant access to care in Medicaid, access problems surrounding individuals with medical complexities, and children with disabilities in Medicaid.

Proposals to reform Medicaid in order to increase access and reduce social disparities. Topics may include new proposed models that increase access to care, the ACA’s role in expanding access under Medicaid, and bridging the disconnect between health care spending and health outcomes in the United States through Medicaid reform.

Submission Information: Those interested in participating, please send a 1000-word abstract to health-law@luc.edu by June 16, 2018. Authors will be notified of decisions no later than July 14, 2018. It is our hope presenters will submit papers for publication in the Annals of Health Law. Papers submitted for publication will be due by January 8, 2019.

Loyola University Chicago’s nationally acclaimed Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy is pleased to invite original research submissions for the annual Wiet Life Science Law Scholars Conference to be held on Friday, September 7, 2018.

The conference is designed to provide an intellectual venue for life science professors, scholars, and practitioners to convene and discuss current research and scholarship. The phrase “life science law” intends to capture diverse disciplines that involve significant issues of life science research and development, spanning food and drug law, health law, intellectual property (IP) law, biotechnology law, environmental law, administrative law, and antitrust law. Our goal is to foster recognition of life science law as a cohesive, dynamic area of legal study and strengthen connections among national life science law scholars.

Loyola is currently soliciting 750-1,000 word abstracts reflecting early or mid-stage ideas for the purpose of workshopping with other conference scholars. Modeled after successful events for law professors and scholars in other areas, we will organize scholars in topical panels of three to five authors with approximately 15 minutes allotted to each abstract presentation, followed by 15 minutes of intensive discussion with scholar attendees. Author abstracts will be distributed one week prior to the conference to scholar participants; authors may also submit draft articles for distribution. Scholars are expected to review materials of fellow panel members.

Loyola University Chicago School of Law is currently accepting applications to fill its chair in health law and policy, named in honor of law school alumnus and donor Bernard J. Beazley. Details regarding qualifications and application requirements can be found on Loyola’s Careers site.

Muchhasbeenwritten about the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania’s recent decision in Shinal v. Toms, in which the court held that a physician’s duty to obtain informed consent, as codified in Pennsylvania’s MCARE Act, is non-delegable. According to the court, a physician faced with an informed consent suit cannot defend himself on the grounds that the patient was adequately informed of the risks and benefits of treatment by a physician assistant, nurse, or other intermediary acting under the physician’s direction. Pennsylvania is not the first state to adopt this view – courts in other jurisdictions (Connecticut, Louisiana, South Dakota, Texas, New Mexico) have similarly held that the duty to secure informed consent rests with the treating physician alone.

The MCARE (Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error) Act was passed in 2002 to reform Pennsylvania’s medical malpractice laws, and refers to the duties and rights of “physicians” and “patients.” Shinal, likewise, addressed the issue of informed consent in the context of medical treatment. Thus, I was very surprised to learn that some commercial institutional review boards (IRBs), in reliance on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision, have been advising clinical trial investigators to revise their consent forms and processes to ensure that physician-investigators – and not recruitment coordinators, nurses, or other study staff – secure the consent of research participants.

Schulman, one of the most well-known commercial IRBs, recently posted about the Shinal case on its website; while noting that the case focused on medical malpractice “and does not address consent in the research context,” it advised investigators to “discuss with their legal counsel the impact of this decision on their consent process.” Sterling IRB had a similar post, advising investigators to “consider drafting consent form updates to clearly require that only physician members of the research team may obtain informed consent from a research subject.” In an e-mail that went directly to investigators and study staff, Sterling also suggested that they submit updated consent forms that “make clear that the only person who can obtain consent is the PI/physician.” A recent article in the Journal of Clinical Research Best Practice, titled “What Impact will the Shinal Case have on Informed Consent in Clinical Research?,” offered a more detailed analysis of the case, and concluded that “there is little to suggest that courts would not uniformly apply the same informed consent standards used in the medical practice to clinical research.” Read More

It is well known that maternal mortality rates in the United States are higher than in othercountries in the developed world, and that many of these deaths are preventable. But a report published by NPR last week, just a few days before Mother’s Day, drew a direct link between these poor maternal outcomes and health care providers’ focus on fetal health. The report quotes Barbara Levy, vice president for health policy and advocacy at the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who said, “We worry a lot about vulnerable little babies, [but] we don’t pay enough attention to those things that can be catastrophic for women.” According to the authors of the NPR report, “newborns in the slightest danger are whisked off to neonatal intensive care units … staffed by highly trained specialists prepared for the worst,” while new mothers are instead monitored by nurses and physicians “who expect things to be fine and are often unprepared when they aren’t.”

These patterns are consistent with what Prof. Jamie Abrams calls “fetal consequentialism” – the premise that the birth of a healthy child outweighs any harm to the birthing mother. The increase in U.S. maternal mortality rates highlighted in the NPR report is certainly a product of such fetal consequentialism. So is the practice of obstetric violence, described in my previousposts, where health care providers dismiss birthing mothers’ informed requests for minimal intervention during labor and delivery in an effort to reduce the risk of fetal harm, even when that risk is minimal. Fetal consequentialism is likely driven not only by providers’ judgments of the relative liability risks for harms to fetuses versus harms to mothers, but also by conservative societal trends (evidenced by increasing anti-abortion legislation) that preference fetal interests over maternal interests. Read More

Loyola University Chicago’s nationally acclaimed Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy is pleased to invite original research submissions for its inaugural Wiet Life Science Law Scholars Conference on Friday, October 13, 2017.

The conference is designed to provide a new intellectual venue for life science professors, scholars, and practitioners to convene and discuss current research and scholarship. The phrase “life science law” aims to capture research and disciplines spanning food and drug law, health law, intellectual property (IP), biotechnology, environmental, administrative, antitrust, and other realms that involve the life sciences in some meaningful respect. Our goal is to foster recognition of life science law as a cohesive, dynamic, area of legal study and strengthen connections among national life science law scholars.

Loyola is currently soliciting 750-1,000 word abstracts reflecting early or mid-stage ideas for the purpose of workshopping with other conference scholars. Modeled after successful events for law professors and scholars in other areas, participants will be organized in topical panels of three to five authors with approximately 15-20 minutes allotted to each abstract presentation, followed by discussions with scholar attendees. Abstracts from the authors will be distributed one week prior to the conference; authors may also submit draft articles for distribution to conference attendees.

SUBMISSION AND REVIEW TIMELINE: The deadline for 750-1,000 word abstracts, including author contact information is June 15. Submit via email to health-law@luc.edu with subject line Wiet Life Science Law.

Authors will be notified of speaker selections by email on or before July 15.

There is growing public recognition that women’s autonomy rights during labor and delivery are being routinely violated. Though such violations rarely rise to the level of egregious obstetric violence I described in an earlier blog post, women recognize that hospital births, even for the most low-risk pregnancies, often involve cascades of medical interventions that lack evidence-based support and can have negative health consequences for both mother and child. Indeed, evidence suggests that an increasing number of women are pursuing options like midwife-assisted birth, delivery in free-standing birthing centers, and even home birth in an effort to avoid interventionist hospital practices. According to the 2013 Listening to Mothers Survey, nearly six in ten women agree that birth is a process that “should not be interfered with unless medically necessary.”

One tool that women frequently use to increase the likelihood that their autonomous choices will be respected during labor and delivery is the birth plan, a document that outlines a woman’s values and preferences with respect to the birthing process, and serves as a tool for facilitating communication with care providers. However, while most women view the creation of a birth plan as empowering, there is little evidence to suggest that the use of birth plans actually improves communication, increases women’s feelings of control, or affects the process or outcome of childbirth. In fact, there appears to be some resistance within the medical community to women’s reliance on birth plans, with one article describing “the two words ‘birth plan’ strik[ing] terror in the hearts of many perinatal nurses.” Read More

In 2013, Kimberly Turbin came to Providence Tarzana Medical Center for a momentous occasion – the birth of her first child. In the delivery room, she was surrounded by supportive family members. Her mother stood by her side with a video recorder, hoping to capture the once-in-a-lifetime event for posterity.

And this is where Kimberly’s birth story veers off course. According to the complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court against her OB/GYN, Dr. Alex Abbassi, Kimberly is a survivor of sexual assault who had confided in the medical staff that she had previously been raped. She requested that the staff ask permission before touching her, and asked them to “be gentle.” And when Dr. Abbassi told Kimberly during delivery that he would be performing an episiotomy – a surgical procedure in which the perineum and vaginal wall are cut to provide more room for the baby to pass through the vaginal canal – Kimberly objected. When she asked why the episiotomy was necessary, Dr. Abbassi provided no medical justification. He responded, “What do you mean, Why? I am the expert here! … You can go home and do it! You go to Kentucky!” Kimberly continued to object, loudly saying “No!” and “No, don’t cut me!” numerous times. Dr. Abbassi proceeded nevertheless, cutting her perineum twelve times. A video of this entire encounter, which is extremely graphic and difficult to watch, is viewable on YouTube.

These allegations, if true, present a textbook case of battery – the defendant intended to cause contact with the patient, the contact was harmful and offensive, and the contact was neither consented to nor justified by any emergency. And yet, when Kimberly filed suit for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, Dr. Abbassi moved to dismiss her suit – he argued that because Kimberly’s claim was grounded in the failure to obtain informed consent, it constituted negligence under California’s medical malpractice laws and therefore was barred by a shorter statute of limitations. In June of 2016, however, Judge Benny Osorio denied Dr. Abbassi’s motion to dismiss the battery claim, holding that the “alleged act of proceeding against the express wishes of Plaintiff … is premised on intentional misconduct and not professional negligence.”

The American Society for Law, Medicine & Ethics (ASLME) is pleased to announce the second annual bioIP Faculty Workshop on May 5, 2017 at Loyola University of Chicago School of Law in Chicago, IL.

The Workshop offers a unique opportunity for three scholars in their first decade of teaching to present their work in progress for in-depth critique and commentary by respected senior scholars in the field.

Topics for the workshop are at the intersection of biotechnology, life sciences, food and drug law, and intellectual property (hence, bioip), broadly defined. A Review Committee comprised of faculty from the Boston University School of Law, Georgia State University College of Law, and the Loyola University Chicago School of Law will select papers for the Workshop in a blind process. Papers should present an original thesis and contribute to scholarly literature. The Workshop will not review published work.

Scholars with less than ten years of teaching experience, including VAPS and Fellows, are eligible for participation in the Workshop. Those interested in participating should submit an abstract (up to 750 words) of the proposed paper (without identifying details) along with a c.v. to Ted Hutchinson, Executive Director of the ASMLE at thutchinson@aslme.org by Oct 14, 2016.

Selected abstracts will be announced later in Fall 2016 with the full draft papers due by April 1, 2017. The organizers will cover reasonable travel and lodging expenses for selected scholars.

The Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Annals of Health Law invite original research paper submissions on innovations in life sciences and stakeholder and agency responses for presentation at our Tenth Annual Health Law Symposium. The Symposium will take place at Loyola University Chicago School of Law on Friday, October 28, 2016 at 9:30am.

The Symposium will explore recent innovations in life sciences and responses by regulatory agencies including FDA, FTC, and DOJ as well as stakeholder responses and recommended next steps for policy and regulatory reforms.

A range of topics will be considered, including but not limited to gene editing, mobile health,
cybersecurity, personalized/precision medicine, 3-D printing technologies, Cancer Moonshot 2020, biosimilars and interchangeable biologics, and vaccine development and incentives (e.g., Zika).

Submission Information: Those interested in participating, please send a 1000-word abstract to health-law@luc.edu by May 31, 2016. Authors will be notified of decisions no later than June 15, 2016. If your abstract is selected, a full paper will be due by January 6, 2017.